Stefan Panic and Joe Arsenault used to dream of building things in Minecraft for a living. But until recently, they couldn’t quite figure out how.
While Panic worked odd jobs and lived with his father, and Arsenault climbed the corporate ladder at Best Buy, they ran a collective called Noxcrew that built intricate environments and mini-games within Minecraft, at one point involving around 50 volunteers for support. To date, their work has been downloaded more than 1 million times. Yet all their attempts at making money–from Patreon donations to ad-supported download pages–have only been enough to cover their hosting costs.
Noxcrew’s World Of Horses Ranch lets players train and ride horses on virtual tracks. [Image: courtesy of Microsoft]In late 2016, Microsoft reached out with an offer that changed everything: The company wanted to discuss an official marketplace for Minecraft creations, which would allow groups like Noxcrew to sell their work directly to players. Like most of the other creators that Microsoft invited into the program, Panic and Arsenault trusted their guts and gave up their day jobs. Now, they make Minecraft content full-time, with help from 15 paid contractors.
“We got the Marketplace opportunity, and it turned from a hobbyist community into an actual business,” Panic says.
Minecraft boss Helen Chiang [Photo: courtesy of Microsoft]Ten months after launching the Marketplace, Microsoft touts plenty of individual success stories like this. There’s the 16-year-old boy who’s paying for college with his Minecraft creations, the Israeli startup that’s using Minecraft to make empowering content for young girls, and community mainstays like Arsenault and Panic who now have the means to increase their output. Microsoft tells Fast Company that it’s paid out more than $7 million to 45 Marketplace creators since last June and that people have downloaded Marketplace content more than 25 million times. (Microsoft won’t specify its takeaway, but says creators get “the majority” of what’s left after app store processing fees of around 30%.)
“When I see the impact that it’s having—engagement with Marketplace content just continues to grow month-over-month—this is something we’re invested in for the long haul,” says Helen Chiang, Microsoft’s head of Minecraft. “And I’m just trying to figure out how we grow as fast as possible.”
The Noxcrew[Photo: courtesy of Microsoft]Now comes the hard part. While the Marketplace has already been life changing for a small number of creators, it’s yet to become a meaningful business to Microsoft, which spent $2.5 billion to acquire Minecraft developer Mojang in 2013. With roughly 74 million people actively playing Minecraft as of last December, and lots more creators clamoring to sell their work, the Marketplace could someday become as big a phenomenon as Minecraft itself. But along the way, Microsoft must ensure the safety of its predominantly young audience and avoid alienating its community members–many of whom have spent years building the Minecraft ecosystem for free. There aren’t many examples of companies that have successfully pulled this off.
